The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday announced eight new cases of COVID-19 infections and three deaths, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Taiwan to 306 and raising the total number of fatalities to five.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the center, said the new infections include seven imported cases and one domestic case.
The imported cases are three women and four men who returned to Taiwan from Egypt, the Philippines, the US and the UK between March 2 and March 22, and involve five clusters of cases.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
Case No. 300 is a student at the same school in the UK as two previously confirmed cases; No. 302 is a student at a US school with six previously confirmed cases; and No. 305 had visited relatives in the Philippines and had close contact with a previously confirmed case during the trip, he said.
Chen said cases No. 303 and No. 304 visited the US with a group of 10 people, in which a member had tested positive for COVID-19.
The domestic case, No. 299, is a five-year-old boy who is the son of case No. 269, a man in his 30s who was also reported as a domestic case on Saturday, he said.
Chen said case No. 269, who is a Ministry of Transportation and Communications official working at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, likely contracted the virus from case No. 277, a man in his 20s who tested positive a few days after returning from the Philippines on March 20.
Local media outlets reported that case No. 277 is a son of a ranking Tourism Bureau official, and that No. 277 had coffee with case No. 269 at the airport.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that case No. 299 attended school on Thursday last week, but developed a mild fever in the afternoon, so the preschool class — 17 people in all, including teachers and classmates — has been ordered to undergo 14-day mandatory home isolation.
Chen said the father of case No. 277, as well as three coworkers of case No. 269, have also been placed under home isolation.
The center reported one death on Sunday night and two yesterday. Case No. 34 had a serious heart condition when she was hospitalized, recovered from pneumonia slowly after treatment, but died of arrhythmia and heart failure, CDC Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said.
Case No. 108 was a man in his 40s who led a tour group to Austria and the Czech Republic from March 5 to 14.
He had hypertension and poor cardiopulmonary function due to obesity, Chou said, adding that the man suffered respiratory distress on Wednesday last week and died of multiple organ failure.
The third fatality was case No. 170, a man in his 60s who had cancer and visited Spain before contracting COVID-19, Chou said.
The man had a serious case of pneumonia when he was hospitalized on Monday last week and died of acute multiple organ dysfunction, severe pulmonary infiltrates and respiratory failure.
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
EASING ANXIETY: The new guide includes a section encouraging people to discuss the threat of war with their children and teach them how to recognize disinformation The Ministry of National Defense’s All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency yesterday released its updated civil defense handbook, which defines the types of potential military aggression by an “enemy state” and self-protection tips in such scenarios. The agency has released three editions of the handbook since 2022, covering information from the preparation of go-bags to survival tips during natural disasters and war. Compared with the previous edition, released in 2023, the latest version has a clearer focus on wartime scenarios. It includes a section outlining six types of potential military threats Taiwan could face, including destruction of critical infrastructure and most undersea cables, resulting in
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said that it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Ragasa this morning and a land warning at night as it approached Taiwan. Ragasa intensified from a tropical storm into a typhoon at 8am yesterday, the CWA said, adding that at 2pm, it was about 1,110km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip. The typhoon was moving northwest at 13kph, with sustained winds of up to 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA Web site showed. Forecaster Liu Pei-teng (劉沛滕) said that Ragasa was projected to strengthen as it neared the Bashi Channel, with its 200km
RSS